Enter a mind full of transcendental drugs, doomed punks, voyeuristic puppets and
omnipotent intergalactic prisons in Chris Kelso’s debut short fiction collection.
Anna Tambour intro at The Shwiby
Acclaim for this Book
‘Chris Kelso is a writer of wide and varied obsessions. In Schadenfreude he shares all of them. This collection is just the right amount of raunchy, and is guaranteed to uplift the heart of today’s most discerningly jaded nihilist’
—Tom Bradley, author of Hemorrhaging Slave of an Obese Eunuch
‘Impressive debut. Schadenfreude is more than a short story collection; it’s a way of life’
— Stewart Home, author of Red London
‘Chris Kelso is the finger inside of your least favourite hole
giving you your most favourite sensation; Schadenfreude is the frothy evidence left behind.’
—Christy Leigh Stewart, author of Terminally Beautiful
‘Choke down a handful of magic mushrooms and hop inside a rocket ship trip to futuristic settings filled with pop culture, strange creatures and all manner of sexual deviance. The mundane becomes the bizarre, the standard evolves into the alien, and penises and vaginas are rarely what they seem. Buckle up. Shadenfruede is indeed pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.’
—Richard Thomas, author of Transubstantiate
‘Take Mr Kelso’s front-loaded disclaimer of dour grey moroseness with the boulder of salt it deserves. This is a jittering nightmare collection of images and events that will startle and delight you at every turn. Revolting and eerily charming, Schadenfreude will linger in your mind long after you put it down.’
—Deb Hoag, author of Queer and Loathing on the Yellow-Brick Road
‘Utterly unique. Schadenfreude proves, once and for all, that Chris Kelso is NOT a mannequin.’
—D. Harlan Wilson, author of Peckinpah
‘The stories in Schadenfreude are like non-Euclidean geometry: mysterious, unique and wrapped in an aura of magic and mysticism. Kelso’s prose is lean and tough and the impact these stories have on the reader prove there’s no need for gimmicks when the power of weirdness is effectively wielded.’
—Gabino Iglesias, Horror-Talk
‘Chris Kelso is the one your mother warned you about. He is a sick, sick man—bereft of cure and heaped with symptom. His words will taint you irrevocably. Your eyes will want to gargle after reading just one of his stories. His book is unique—but that’s a good thing.’
—Steve Vernon, author of Nothing to Lose
‘A bewildering manuscript written in an unknown tongue and cheek. Full of pleats and petards but does not mention halibuts in any context. So don’t just read it upside down; read it upside down and inside out.’
‘I hella dug it! Chris Kelso’s Schadenfreude is dirty, dark, and fun. This collection is a dismal delight, peppered with humor as black as plague and infused with gripping horror, for fans of macabre fiction.’
—Jonathan Moon, author of Heinous
‘Schadenfreude functions as a pathology museum never intended for those seeking to educate themselves about what may go wrong in fiction–or the world at large–but was instead constructed for the voyeur who escaped from your basement, still bound with razorwire, desperate for the ultimate degradation.’
—John Edward Lawson, author of SuiPsalms/editor at Raw Dog Screaming Press
A Message from the Slave State